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Thursday, February 28, 2013

Cassie
Neill is ‘gifted’: she can enter most peoples’ minds, sometimes by simple
proximity but mostly by making a connection to the person, either by
eye-contact or physical touch. She can even reach some people by touching an
object that they have held or worn. This makes her invaluable to the LA police
as they try to catch a serial killer, but when she makes a mistake a child dies
and the killer escapes. In an attempt to seek some peace, Cassie moves to
sleepy Ryan’s Bluff, North Carolina, where she has inherited her aunt’s
isolated house. However, it seems that murders happen even in the most unlikely
of places.

Her
first contact relays his fury and determination to kill the woman that he
despises. In an effort to save an innocent life, Cassie speaks to the local
Sheriff, but he is dismissive of her abilities and she eventually turns to
Judge Ben Ryan in the hopes that he will believe her. Then a young woman is
murdered and Cassie suddenly finds herself a suspect until she can prove that
she is telling the truth. As the killer continues her killing spree, Cassie
must work with law enforcement to uncover any clue to his identity, risking her
own mental health by sharing his terrifying thoughts.

This is
the first in the Bishop / Special Crimes Series, which will reach its
fourteenth installment this summer. Each book is a stand-alone crime mystery
involving a woman with paranormal abilities who must help to catch a deranged
serial killer. The common link between all the titles is the presence of Noah
Bishop, an FBI Agent from the Special Crimes Unit. However, in this title
Bishop does not make his appearance until the second half of the story, which
left me wondering about the name of the series and slightly distracted.

However,
the story was gripping enough to overcome this distraction and the Ms Hooper’s
use of the killer’s Point of View at certain times added to the general air of
terror and threat that he generated. The descriptions of Cassie’s experiences
inside the heads of both this killer and others were very well done. They had a
sense of reality which overcame the necessary suspension of disbelief required
by her abilities. I particularly appreciated that Cassie was not simply a
fluffy, special bunny who had a normal life despite of her ability. As with
Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse, Cassie is constantly disabled by her
ability, which can be as much of a curse as a gift. She shares Sookie’s
feelings of separation and isolation, and even finds the same respite in the
arms of a man whose mind is silent to her, even when she touches him.

I was
worried that Cassie would be revealed to be quite a passive character as soon
as it was obvious that this was a Paranormal Romance. However, she is a very
strong personality who shows great bravery and determination throughout the
plot and does not become a wet blanket as soon as the alpha male becomes
evident. As someone who is wary of the Romance genre, I found this a great
relief and it greatly increased my enjoyment of the book. There are Romance
elements, but these are subtly done and do not reduce the heroine into a mere
cipher for our wish-fulfillment. Instead, we are shown the development of a
strong relationship, in which both parties grow and become greater than the sum
of their parts. I also felt that theirs was a relationship that I could
actually believe would last into the future: so often Romance couples make such
unlikely coupling that it is almost impossible to imagine them growing old
together.

Our
hero, Ben, is suitably tall, dark and handsome, but he also has his issues and
needs to develop as a character before he can commit to their relationship. I
particularly liked his relationship with the Sherriff, which was close and yet
suitably male, with a healthy dose of realism to make it more interesting.
Indeed Ryan’s Bluff and its inhabitants were well-realized and provided a
suitably detailed backdrop for the story that unfolded. However, I would have
liked certain characters to have been introduced more than a few pages before
they were placed in jeopardy. There was one scene in particular where we were
given several women converging on the place that we knew would be the scene of
the next abduction, and I found that rather heavy handed and melodramatic. It
led to a feeling of ‘red shirt
syndrome’, where the least known character was obviously the one in danger.

The
plot clipped along at a good pace, with plenty of shocks and lots of tension. I
was particularly concerned about the dogs that were introduced as guards
against the killer. I am one of those people who get more upset about a dog
being murdered than a human: I am not sure what that says about me, but it is
the truth. After we met them, I was in constant fear that the killer would
silence the faithful doggy protector before taking out his chosen victim.

I was
especially impressed by the depiction of the relationship between one of the
women and her abusive former husband. Although she was only a minor character,
I thought that her transition from terrified, powerless victim to
newly-empowered independent woman was very well done. Her inner turmoil and
doubts about facing down her former abuser were inspiring and I particularly
loved a scene where she warned him that if anything at all happened to her
newly-acquired dog she would hold him responsible. It was very refreshing to
see a positive outcome from such a horrible situation.

I am
not sure that I feel a desperate need to read more in this series, but as they
are all stand-alone titles, I could easily see me picking one up when I need a
good solid read with an intriguing plot and strong characterization.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

This
series will reach title number 37 later this year: I have no idea how Ms Robb
(aka Nora Roberts) finds time to eat or sleep!

We
read the first title in the series, Naked in Death, last fall. It read
perfectly well as a stand-alone title, leaving no loose ends dangling or an
unwelcome cliffhanger that propels you on to the next installment, which is
always welcome in the first title in a series. However, I am not sure that I
felt much need to read further into the series, which was a little disappointing
as I had expected a strong desire to continue exploring this slightly
futuristic world.

At
first we are presented with our heroine, Eve Dallas, as a tough, independent
woman, but as soon as she meets Roarke she starts to trust him for no
particularly good reason. Whilst I can understand her unwilling attraction to
the man, I find it very difficult to accept her having sex with him so early in
their relationship. It boggles my mind that she would chose to have sex with
any man, let alone one that she hardly knows and who could be a vicious serial
killer. This seems to play far too much into the ‘emotion over logic’, ‘your
heart knows the truth’ stuff that makes my head ache when I read Romances. It
is not that I disliked Roarke, but I would have been far more interested in
their relationship if they had had to deal with her inability to trust men. I
wanted to see her slowly learn to let Roarke within her emotional perimeter,
but their relationship seemed far too rushed to me and this undermined my enjoyment
of the crime aspect of the story.

Monday, February 4, 2013

Just as a reminder the next meeting will be on February 21 at 6:00 pm in
the Lecture Hall. I have just put up the book vote page for March's
book picks. There were a few that I kept from last month's choices, but
the majority came from suggestions of book group members.

Friday, February 1, 2013

We read Ms Carriger’s debut title, Soulless,
last year. It was an amusing change to the usual Urban Fantasy novels, with the
refreshing addition of Steampunk and a truly wonderful heroine in Alexia
Tarabotti. It offered us a decidedly different take on the vampires and
werewolves that typically populate such titles and had an amazingly acerbic and
sarcastic sense of humor, which kept me giggling in delight for the entire
read. I have to admit that I enjoyed it
so much that I read the second and third books in the Parasol Protectorate
series and I intend to conquer books four and five this year, so I was
delighted to read that Ms Carriger will publish the first in a new series on
Tuesday.

Etiquette
& Espionage
is the first offering in the Finishing School series.

Here is the description from Goodreads:

It's one thing to learn to curtsy properly.
It's quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time.
Welcome to finishing school.

Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is the bane of her mother's existence. Sophronia is
more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper etiquette
at tea--and god forbid anyone see her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is
desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. She enrolls Sophronia in
Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But little do Sophronia or her mother know that this is a school where
ingenious young girls learn to finish, all right--but it's a different kind of
finishing. Mademoiselle Geraldine's certainly trains young ladies in the finer
arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but also in the other kinds of finishing:
the fine arts of death, diversion, deceit, espionage, and the modern
weaponries. Sophronia and her friends are going to have a rousing first year at
school.

First in a four book YA series set 25 years before the Parasol Protectorate but
in the same universe.

Ms Carriger has plenty of interesting
information about the title on her blog where you can check out posts on: